


Moving Forward

by LittleRaven



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Deposed After a Coup/Revolution (if a bit self-inflicted), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Experiencing Another's Pain Through Psychic Bond, F/M, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 12:16:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18810727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleRaven/pseuds/LittleRaven
Summary: She was tired of being surprised with more chances to say goodbye to him.





	Moving Forward

**Author's Note:**

  * For [outruntheavalanche](https://archiveofourown.org/users/outruntheavalanche/gifts).



She was surprised he wanted to see her. 

Of course, she'd have come anyway, having felt him alive. Just to witness. She'd already left him, and that life, behind, as he—and the Force, she'd grown to understand—had willed it. All the more reason to pay her respects to it. 

He wasn’t on a prison planet, for as much as Tatooine would not have been an improvement for the Anakin she’d known. He never would have been; Anakin was too dangerous, both in his own power and the influence that power could have on Imperial prisoners, to be caged himself. More than that, he hadn’t been caught. 

Good. Easier for her to get to him. Being alone in a ruined Sith temple for years had not improved her patience for bureaucracy. 

The situation was unstable, the Rebellion triumphant but busy mopping up the mess, and one of its heroes distracted. The galaxy was being reborn in the fires of this war. She knew he might very well die as part of that process, if ever he was found. Or gave himself up, perhaps; she hadn’t been able to predict his behavior for a long time. 

It wouldn’t be the death Ahsoka thought he might've wanted: death by trial and execution, a death of waiting, of being watched. It was in his nature to die in battle, in action. Then again, her master had already proven to be full of surprises, even to her. At least his war was at an end. 

He must've wanted that. Ahsoka was sure of that much. 

She was less sure of what she herself wanted. She'd wanted to kill him. She'd wanted to save him. She'd never wanted to move on, but she had anyway. Now he was back in her life, for however long that turned out to be, and Ahsoka couldn’t say what she would end up allowing. 

She was here because she intended to keep her promise, for all that his own actions had voided it. 

She was here because the Force had presented the opportunity, and she’d learned to follow it. 

For now, he lived, in pain—she felt that too—and she was here. 

Ahsoka landed in the bright desert of his birthplace. Stepping out of the ship, she noted with curiosity that the docking station was as it had been the one time she’d stepped foot on the planet. Nothing changed in the Outer Rim, no matter what momentous events happened at the center of the galaxy. A grim fact, generally speaking; all the more so here and now as it reminded her of everything else which had changed, not least herself. She wished it weren’t true. 

She stopped, pushed the nostalgia away. It had never served her well to dwell on the past. To do so was weakness. Destruction. Anakin had told her that from the beginning, Ahsoka realized. 

She’d learned. She’d been moving forward all her life—and it had meant her life; this was not the moment to change course, as tempting as it seemed. This was the moment to cement that for herself. She was meant to keep going, honor her promise to Ezra and leave the known galaxy for sights unseen. She was tired of being surprised with more chances to say goodbye to him. 

Her empty ship behind her, white cloak against the suns, Ahsoka headed toward the horizon, following the whisper of the Force in her heart. 

She took no less and no longer than she expected to reach the farm. It had been burnt; she could see the soot remaining on the outside walls, scarring them. Still, it was up. Its current inhabitant—Anakin—had repaired it enough that it looked, at least from her vantage point, like a place people could live in. 

Ahsoka took a moment to reflect on her former master living on a farm. She took another moment to consider, again, the fact that he wouldn’t have to live on it for long. 

She went in. 

He stood waiting for her. Whoever this home had belonged to, they were not there and she was thankful for it. It had been decades since she’d been alone with Anakin. Malachor did not count, for all that it had felt as if they were the only two people in the temple. 

It would be nice, not needing to think about what she owed to anyone. She appreciated the chance. 

Ahsoka took him in. He wore the suit still, though it was noticeably damaged and patched together with less than state-of-the-art repairs. No resources now save scraps if he found them, and his own genius mind. She would help with it later. 

The sight might’ve looked strange to anyone else: big black armor in a little desert farm. But she could feel the warmth of the heart which beat underneath it. There was more than pain. He felt almost at peace here. Almost, that was. He’d asked her to come, but he was nervous. 

Well. That certainly was like him; she’d felt it when he looked her over after each mission, each battle. The memory hurt, but she embraced it. The pain brought joy, too. He could still feel like himself, whatever he’d said about that self when last they’d met. He could still feel like himself, and this time, he’d invited her to come back and experience it with him. 

Ahsoka couldn’t help but take hope from that. The last two decades had given her precious little to hold onto. 

He was the first to speak. 

“Ahsoka.” His voice resonated with both the familiarity of the mask’s breathing and the tenderness behind it. It should’ve sounded odd, but like the sight before, it didn’t. This was Anakin, a new Anakin but her old one all the same, and Ahsoka heard a whole lifetime in it: the two Anakins she’d known before, and the one he’d transformed into to be here. 

She answered him just as gently, and just as briefly. 

“Well?” She wasn’t interested in one-liners today and she figured, what with him calling to her, that he needed to be the one to make the effort. 

“Thank you.”

Ahsoka blinked. Those weren’t the words she’d been expecting. She’d had no idea what to expect, but this was, she decided, one of the very last things she could’ve imagined. 

She still didn’t know what she wanted. 

What she did know was that this was the first time in twenty years she could go to Anakin and give him a hug. So she did. 

The Force willed that this time, he let her.


End file.
